Ars System Guide: March 2011 Edition

The latest installment of the Ars Technica System Guide brings Intel's new …

Some days we love the PC; other days we curse it. The past two or three years, though, seem to have been full of more love than hate, thanks to several major innovations hitting the PC market. Solid state disks (SSDs), several GPU updates from minor to major, and significant updates in the CPU market have left us smiling. Monitors have also seen updates, although changes there have been somewhat more mixed—nicer IPS (in-plane switching) monitors have become slowly more numerous again, but we've lost vertical height in the most common monitor sizes as aspect ratios have shifted.

The gory details aside, computers today are what we say about almost every update—the System Guide gets faster and cheaper, and we get more and more happy with the performance.

System Guide Basics

The main three-box System Guide is back in this installment, with the traditional Budget Box, Hot Rod, and God Box addressing three different price points in the market. The main System Guide's boxes are general-purpose systems with a strong gaming focus, which means you won't find any office boxes or bargain-basement machines here.

The low end of the scale, the Budget Box, is still a formidable gaming machine despite its reasonable price tag ($600-$800). The Hot Rod represents what we think is a reasonable higher-end general-purpose computer that packs plenty of gaming performance, although we've adjusted the price tag a few times recently, from $1400-1600 down to $1200-1400, and now, perhaps back up to the old point to reflect new capabilities and jumps in performance. The God Box remains closest to unchanged from previous incarnations, a very capable starting point for a high-end workstation. It may not do exactly what you want, but it should be an excellent starting point for anyone with a good idea of their truly high-end computing needs, be it gaming to excess after winning the lottery, taking advantage of GPU computing, or storing and editing tons of HD video.

The short take would be: the Budget Box is for those who are seeking the most bang for their buck. The Hot Rod is for enthusiasts with a larger budget but who still know that there's a sweet spot between performance and price. The God Box is for someone who needs the ultimate in performance, but who doesn't want to just waste money for the sake of wasting it (as we often say in these guides, "God wouldn't be a glutton.")

Each box is set up with a full roster of recommendations, down to mouse, keyboard, and speakers. As these are general-purpose boxes, we skip things like game controllers and $100 gaming mice, although the God Box does get something a little nicer. We also discuss alternative configurations and upgrades; today's guide reflects AMD's dominance in the video card market, the battle between Intel and AMD in the sub-$200 CPU space, and the appearance of affordable SSDs—at least if you have a decently sized budget.

As a side note, we do address other systems in our occasional Specialty System Guides. Green computing, more gaming-focused setups at slightly different price points, home theater PCs, an even a lower-cost office/"mom" box known as the Ultimate Budget Box, and others. If you don't see anything that interests you here, please feel free to check them out.

Sandy Bridge, Cayman, and new bits

This update of the System Guide brings big changes in some areas, and relatively few changes in others.

In processors, Intel's new Core i3/i5/i7 processors, formerly code-named "Sandy Bridge," find their way into the Hot Rod. They don't quite get into Budget Box pricing territory yet, and Sandy Bridge-based Xeons (for the God Box) are not scheduled to make an appearance until the end of the year.

Video cards are shaken up all-around by numerous new releases from NVIDIA and AMD. AMD's Cayman chips in their highest-end Radeon 6900-series cards continue a string of strong performers from AMD, but NVIDIA's GF110 and derivatives give AMD surprisingly good competition in the Geforce GTX 500-series cards.

SSDs are a little more ambiguous. The latest and greatest Sandforce SF-2200/SF-2500 controllers have yet to hit the market, the Crucial RealSSD C400 (Marvell-based) is also yet to arrive, and Intel's G3 controller is even further in the distance. Yet, some changes are still occurring, with Intel's Marvell-based 510-series SSDs being a surprise for many.

Other changes are less significant, but 2011 has started off as an interesting year and it looks like it will remain so for the System Guide.

166 Reader Comments

A little bit of a stupid question, but what is considered minimal computing? I'm not a gamer, I don't have a good monitor so I don't care about HD graphics. I just want a machine that can be a good multitasking for intense web browsing plus college level work (Word/Excel/etc). I have an old Dell OptiPlex that I want to convert to my main computer. I am going to have it run Ubuntu. What specs do you think it should have (on a tight budget haha). Thanks for the help, and great article guys!

What model is the DELL Optiplex ? If you can post the Service Tag (listed on a sticker on the case), we can check out the spec and give you some advice.

The single most impressive change you can make to a PC today is an SSD - and it's quite likely we can hook you up with something cheap for your Optiplex.

This guide is great guys. But I have a question, I'm going to make a budget box, but since i already have a monitor speakers ect.. i decided to get a different processor. I'm aiming to get the intel core i5 processor, but I don't know if it will plug in with the ASUS M4A88TD-M/USB3 motherboard. If anyone knows, it would be helpful.

Hey guys. I am a complete beginner when it comes to designing and building a computer, so I've come here for some recommendations. I've attached a link to my (tentative) build so far, and any comments would be welcomed. I'm trying to keep it around or below $1,500.00, and right now it's just under $1,100.00